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How to create a personalized traffic system

2005-04-22T02:35:00Z

I commute between Seattle and Redmond every work day. It takes anywhere from 17 minutes to 45 minutes to get home depending on the condition of traffic, so I used to check our local traffic site regularly to determine the best way and time to head home.

It became repititious to go to the Seattle traffic Web page and click on all of those traffic cams. I discovered a great solution to quickly assess the traffic situation and in near real-time.

Here's what you need:

URL for local traffic map (like this one)
URL for local traffic cameras (like this one)
Konfabulator for Windows
Web Images widget for Konfabulator

Load up your Web Images widget with the URLs for the traffic image and traffic camera, set them all on for Konspose mode only, and position the traffic cameras around the traffic map.

Press F8 and you can get a near real-time snapshot of local traffic without having to load up the browser and it just fades in over your desktop-

Before:

After:

Windows Genuine Advantage: Have we turned a blind eye..?

2005-01-29T00:29:00Z

Well it's great to see the awareness go up concerning Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA)-

However, I have seen some interesting claims online about our WGA program recent expansion. This includes an observation on how WGA leaves out blind users and that you have to authenticate to get security updates. One of these points is true- And it's the blind one.

Regarding the authentication- Security updates are delivered automatically and are not solely dependent on WGA – all users, with or without WGA validation, receive these updates through Automatic Updates (AU). As an owner of a pirated copy of Windows the only thing you lose is the ability to logon to Windows Update and manually select the updates.

Do I think this decision regarding AU for non-GA computers is the right one? IMO, Absolutely. Not patching computers that are on the same network could cause major headaches for both genuine and not genuine users.

Regarding the blind, it's a high-priority issue that will be resolved on the next update for WGA.

Skipping commercials on XP MCE 2005

2005-01-29T00:08:00Z

Came across dCut, an application that plugs into Media Center 2005 (MCE) and can cut DVR-MS files for editings. Picture your favoriate prime time show and- Voila!- Commercials no more.

This shows the strength of MCE as a platform. Do you know what a pain it is to do customized things like this on my ReplayTV box at home? I have noticed the 'Online Spotlight' options already growing within MCE, I am hoping to see more apps like this developed by the MCE community.